4 ms·

Got the X4. Put CrossPoint on it. Works like a charm. The http server accessible over wifi makes transferring books extremely simple. (Shame on the Kindle for l

by sieve 4mo ago

Got the X4. Put CrossPoint on it. Works like a charm. The http server accessible over wifi makes transferring books extremely simple. (Shame on the Kindle for locking everything down.) This is proof-of-concept that a microcontroller is more than enough for something like an e-reader. I have a Kindle and a Kobo. They are sturdy devices. But the X4 is the one that is a genuine e-reader. Would not get it as my one and only e-reader though as you tend to miss the size and backlight of the larger ones. What would I want from future iterations? - backlight even if it compromises on battery a bit - a bit more DPI Everything else is good enough.

kstrauser 4mo ago
I'm with you on every bit. I love my Kobo Libra 2 and it lives on my nightstand table. It's an excellent reader. The X4 with CrossPoint is an alright reader, but I've been chewing through books on my morning commute because it fits in my jacket pocket and I can have it out on the train without bumping into other people. It's not the best reader I own, but it's the best reader I have on me at any given moment when I'm not laying in bed.
- criddell 4mo ago
  Does your reading position sync up between the two devices?
  - ihowlatthemoon 4mo ago
    Not the commenter you were replying to, but I have both a Kindle and a X4. No, it does not, but searching for a unique enough phrase (just two or three words) on the current page gets you there fast enough.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 4mo ago
    As someone who also juggles multiple readers, I find it easier to have a different book per device. Otherwise I would waste too much time trying to sync between the two.
    - sieve 4mo ago
      Yes. I read multiple books in parallel. Each on a different reader. So syncing is not something I usually need though I did build myself a local sync server for fun.
  - crtasm 4mo ago
    If you install koreader on the kobo, crosspoint on the x4 and create a free koreader sync account (or host your own sync sever): yes - but on the x4 you need to manually trigger syncs Alternatively if you wish to stick with the stock Kobo reader app it is possible to sync via a https://grimmory.org/ https://grimmory.org/ instance
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
- sieve 4mo ago
  > It's not the best reader I own, but it's the best reader I have on me at any given moment This. The form factor is almost the right one for an e-reader. The battery lasts for weeks. It is so open that you could probably write your own firmware for it based on CrossPoint or similar for your own needs. Needs some iterative development while ruthlessly culling requests for random features.
  - kstrauser 4mo ago
    > The form factor is almost the right one for an e-reader. It truly is. It fits perfectly in one hand without stretching uncomfortably, so I can hold it for longer than any reading session I've had without making my hand get stiff. While holding it in the normal way, my thumb naturally rests on one of the side buttons, which I've mapped to "next page". If I were to hold out my hand, and someone put an X4 in it, I wouldn't have to move a muscle and it'd be in the right position for me to read for hours with just the periodic button tap. Everyone's different, of course. It's guaranteed to be too big or too small for others, and that's cool. For me it feels like someone custom designed it based on a model of my hand.
    - c45y 4mo ago
      That was the big surprising win for me too, it just fits so comfortably in the hand
  - jerojero 4mo ago
    crosspoint has started developing a little slower now that its in a really usable state. I've merged some working PRs onto my device and it's working great. I really needed a dictionary option because I like to quickly know the meaning of words as I read. its fine. theres a few more things that could be nice (reading statistics for example) that other forks do have.
- scruple 4mo ago
  I also primarily use Kobo e-readers right now but I've been wanting something smaller for an EDC. I think this thread is selling me on it.
  - kstrauser 4mo ago
    I bought it because it was comparatively dirt cheap and was hackable. I was delighted at how nice it actually was to use. I figured it'd be crappy in some ways, but, you know, at least it was cheap. To the contrary, it's perfectly fine and does a great job at letting me flip through ebooks. What it's not good at it showing any kind of diagrams, because even if the software was decent, it's a relatively tiny screen. I haven't even bothered trying to view a PDF on it and don't know if that's supported. For epubs I've uploaded to it through Calibre, it's utterly adequate.
HumblyTossed 4mo ago
All of this. It's a solid device. I like it. It won't replace my Kobo, but it has it's place in my tech lineup. Will buy the next one if it has a light.
pluralmonad 4mo ago
Not being lighted is what has kept me from trying it. If they do add lighting I hope it is a front light and not a back light. Hard to beat a front lit e-ink display for reading. Bonus points for warmth settings.
- jerojero 4mo ago
  Its not physically possible to have eink (based on inked beads, like the current e-reader has) and backlight. only frontlight is possible.
  - pluralmonad 3mo ago
    Great news, but these are still entirely unlit.
tmottabr 4mo ago
There are rumors they will release a V2 Pro version with touch and backlight in the second half of this year. They also have already announced the S4 that is basically the same device, a bit ticker with touch and backlight and running android.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 4mo ago
  It has perfectly usable buttons. Adding touch feels like straying from the core proposition to have a minimal reader.
  - jerojero 4mo ago
    if its still as open, I'm pretty sure the touchscreen can be worked out to work well. but I really agree with you, I'd love to have a frontlight on it. That's literally all I'd wanted over the current device. No touchscreen necessary. but between touchscreen + frontlight and neither, perhaps I'd be willing to have a touchscreen so long as the software is good (which something like crosspoint I'm sure would nail)
  - c45y 4mo ago
    Yeah I really like not having a touchscreen that I have to worry about bumping while I'm reading, a backlight is the only addition I would enjoy to the current x4
    - jdhawk 4mo ago
      I love the buttons, would loath a touchscreen on this size format. Just add a backlight!
- sieve 4mo ago
  Every item you add to the device adds a failure mode. Light is fine. Touch ... I don't know. I like the tactile feel of buttons. And Android means the device no longer runs on a microcontroller which has consequences for battery life etc. As long as they keep the original, minimal model active with minor QoL improvements, I guess it is fine.
coredog64 4mo ago
It was probably a decade ago, but I used to have this extremely cheap e-reader that ran off AA batteries, used a monochrome LCD screen (no lighting) and was based on a microcontroller. If you let the batteries die and waited too long to replace them, you had to reflash the software on it. I think it only handled mobi format, but it might have been epub.
jdhawk 4mo ago
I love my X4 as well, and would love a backlight. Crosspoint and its downline forks are great. the only funny thing about the X4 is reading it in bright sunlight. it will corrupt the image on the screen on page turn unless you shade it? something to do w/ older eInk screens and not having a UV Filter. weird, slightly annoying. Its increased my reading 2-3x though!
- aloer 4mo ago
  FYI you might be using an older version of crosspoint. It now has a software fix for the fading issue built in https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader/issues/561 https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader/issue...
UI_at_80x24 4mo ago
Do you know what the maximum SD card size that it'll support? I'm especially interested if a 1TB card will work.
- staindk 4mo ago
  How many books do you want to fit on that thing? :o
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 4mo ago
    I thought the compressed size of the LLM book corpus was a mere 100-200GB. GP has big plans.
    - backscratches 4mo ago
      Wikipedia is ~60GB!
- abricot 4mo ago
  512 GB according to the manual, but it probably depends on the card.
NikolaNovak 4mo ago
Question to X4 owners - what is the benefit over a smartphone? I have a kindle for beach and travel as a good compromise size; I use my 10" tablet when I really settle in for reading, or when I read technical books with graphs or books with photographs etc. For my adhoc reader I use kindle app on my phone. What is the unique selling point of something like X4? I notice it attaches to the phone which seems bizarre, phone feels like a functional superset, so I must be missing something - is it battery life or less distractions or something else? Thx! :)
- avtar 4mo ago
  Less distractions, yes, but mainly it's the size and e-ink display.
- hyraki 4mo ago
  I thought the same thing until I got a kindle. It just feels different. The eink display is really nice to look at.
  - NikolaNovak 4mo ago
    As I said, I have a kindle :). I'm specifically wondering about the X4, which is the size of a phone, meant to be attached to the phone, but it's not a phone and crucially no backlight. Does it specifically fill a situation for people who don't want to carry a phone but will carry this? Or, for people who might carry x4 and a smart phone, why read on the x4? Thx!
    - eichin 4mo ago
      It's way smaller than modern phones, though - I clip mine to the back of my Samsung (magsafe case) and it only blocks one of the five cameras. (phone: 288g xtelink x4: 75g.) (also: hasn't the x4-v2 already been announced that is supposed to have a frontlight?)
    - eichin 4mo ago
      (having it right there mostly serves as a physical token/reminder that I don't want to get sucked in to my social media and other phone apps as much, so if I'm just using it to fill "politely waiting" time I can just grab the x4 instead. I also have a trivial pandoc-generated epub todo list as the first document, though that would work better as a crosspoint fork/feature really...)
f311a 4mo ago
x4 pro will come with backlight and touch screen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REKdjxYtMrI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REKdjxYtMrI
abricot 4mo ago
I have the Kobo Libra Color and the contrast on the X4 is much much better. The whole sticking-it-to-the-back-of-your-phone i find a bit useless, but mine came with two metal rings so that I can stick it to other places. I have one ring on the dashboard of my car so the X4 can hang there until i need to use it. Good for trips with many stops.
czpl 4mo ago
You can always install KOReader on Kindle to get the painless wireless transfer as well. It can even sync wirelessly with Calibre.

by sieve 4mo ago

kstrauser 4mo ago

I'm with you on every bit. I love my Kobo Libra 2 and it lives on my nightstand table. It's an excellent reader. The X4 with CrossPoint is an alright reader, but I've been chewing through books on my morning commute because it fits in my jacket pocket and I can have it out on the train without bumping into other people. It's not the best reader I own, but it's the best reader I have on me at any given moment when I'm not laying in bed.

criddell 4mo ago
Does your reading position sync up between the two devices?
- ihowlatthemoon 4mo ago
  Not the commenter you were replying to, but I have both a Kindle and a X4. No, it does not, but searching for a unique enough phrase (just two or three words) on the current page gets you there fast enough.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 4mo ago
  As someone who also juggles multiple readers, I find it easier to have a different book per device. Otherwise I would waste too much time trying to sync between the two.
  - sieve 4mo ago
    Yes. I read multiple books in parallel. Each on a different reader. So syncing is not something I usually need though I did build myself a local sync server for fun.
- crtasm 4mo ago
  If you install koreader on the kobo, crosspoint on the x4 and create a free koreader sync account (or host your own sync sever): yes - but on the x4 you need to manually trigger syncs Alternatively if you wish to stick with the stock Kobo reader app it is possible to sync via a https://grimmory.org/ https://grimmory.org/ instance
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
sieve 4mo ago
> It's not the best reader I own, but it's the best reader I have on me at any given moment This. The form factor is almost the right one for an e-reader. The battery lasts for weeks. It is so open that you could probably write your own firmware for it based on CrossPoint or similar for your own needs. Needs some iterative development while ruthlessly culling requests for random features.
- kstrauser 4mo ago
  > The form factor is almost the right one for an e-reader. It truly is. It fits perfectly in one hand without stretching uncomfortably, so I can hold it for longer than any reading session I've had without making my hand get stiff. While holding it in the normal way, my thumb naturally rests on one of the side buttons, which I've mapped to "next page". If I were to hold out my hand, and someone put an X4 in it, I wouldn't have to move a muscle and it'd be in the right position for me to read for hours with just the periodic button tap. Everyone's different, of course. It's guaranteed to be too big or too small for others, and that's cool. For me it feels like someone custom designed it based on a model of my hand.
  - c45y 4mo ago
    That was the big surprising win for me too, it just fits so comfortably in the hand
- jerojero 4mo ago
  crosspoint has started developing a little slower now that its in a really usable state. I've merged some working PRs onto my device and it's working great. I really needed a dictionary option because I like to quickly know the meaning of words as I read. its fine. theres a few more things that could be nice (reading statistics for example) that other forks do have.
scruple 4mo ago
I also primarily use Kobo e-readers right now but I've been wanting something smaller for an EDC. I think this thread is selling me on it.
- kstrauser 4mo ago
  I bought it because it was comparatively dirt cheap and was hackable. I was delighted at how nice it actually was to use. I figured it'd be crappy in some ways, but, you know, at least it was cheap. To the contrary, it's perfectly fine and does a great job at letting me flip through ebooks. What it's not good at it showing any kind of diagrams, because even if the software was decent, it's a relatively tiny screen. I haven't even bothered trying to view a PDF on it and don't know if that's supported. For epubs I've uploaded to it through Calibre, it's utterly adequate.

HumblyTossed 4mo ago

All of this. It's a solid device. I like it. It won't replace my Kobo, but it has it's place in my tech lineup. Will buy the next one if it has a light.

pluralmonad 4mo ago

Not being lighted is what has kept me from trying it. If they do add lighting I hope it is a front light and not a back light. Hard to beat a front lit e-ink display for reading. Bonus points for warmth settings.

jerojero 4mo ago
Its not physically possible to have eink (based on inked beads, like the current e-reader has) and backlight. only frontlight is possible.
- pluralmonad 3mo ago
  Great news, but these are still entirely unlit.

tmottabr 4mo ago

There are rumors they will release a V2 Pro version with touch and backlight in the second half of this year. They also have already announced the S4 that is basically the same device, a bit ticker with touch and backlight and running android.

0cf8612b2e1e 4mo ago
It has perfectly usable buttons. Adding touch feels like straying from the core proposition to have a minimal reader.
- jerojero 4mo ago
  if its still as open, I'm pretty sure the touchscreen can be worked out to work well. but I really agree with you, I'd love to have a frontlight on it. That's literally all I'd wanted over the current device. No touchscreen necessary. but between touchscreen + frontlight and neither, perhaps I'd be willing to have a touchscreen so long as the software is good (which something like crosspoint I'm sure would nail)
- c45y 4mo ago
  Yeah I really like not having a touchscreen that I have to worry about bumping while I'm reading, a backlight is the only addition I would enjoy to the current x4
  - jdhawk 4mo ago
    I love the buttons, would loath a touchscreen on this size format. Just add a backlight!
sieve 4mo ago
Every item you add to the device adds a failure mode. Light is fine. Touch ... I don't know. I like the tactile feel of buttons. And Android means the device no longer runs on a microcontroller which has consequences for battery life etc. As long as they keep the original, minimal model active with minor QoL improvements, I guess it is fine.

coredog64 4mo ago

It was probably a decade ago, but I used to have this extremely cheap e-reader that ran off AA batteries, used a monochrome LCD screen (no lighting) and was based on a microcontroller. If you let the batteries die and waited too long to replace them, you had to reflash the software on it. I think it only handled mobi format, but it might have been epub.

jdhawk 4mo ago

I love my X4 as well, and would love a backlight. Crosspoint and its downline forks are great. the only funny thing about the X4 is reading it in bright sunlight. it will corrupt the image on the screen on page turn unless you shade it? something to do w/ older eInk screens and not having a UV Filter. weird, slightly annoying. Its increased my reading 2-3x though!

aloer 4mo ago
FYI you might be using an older version of crosspoint. It now has a software fix for the fading issue built in https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader/issues/561 https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader/issue...

UI_at_80x24 4mo ago

Do you know what the maximum SD card size that it'll support? I'm especially interested if a 1TB card will work.

staindk 4mo ago
How many books do you want to fit on that thing? :o
- 0cf8612b2e1e 4mo ago
  I thought the compressed size of the LLM book corpus was a mere 100-200GB. GP has big plans.
  - backscratches 4mo ago
    Wikipedia is ~60GB!
abricot 4mo ago
512 GB according to the manual, but it probably depends on the card.

NikolaNovak 4mo ago

Question to X4 owners - what is the benefit over a smartphone? I have a kindle for beach and travel as a good compromise size; I use my 10" tablet when I really settle in for reading, or when I read technical books with graphs or books with photographs etc. For my adhoc reader I use kindle app on my phone. What is the unique selling point of something like X4? I notice it attaches to the phone which seems bizarre, phone feels like a functional superset, so I must be missing something - is it battery life or less distractions or something else? Thx! :)

avtar 4mo ago
Less distractions, yes, but mainly it's the size and e-ink display.
hyraki 4mo ago
I thought the same thing until I got a kindle. It just feels different. The eink display is really nice to look at.
- NikolaNovak 4mo ago
  As I said, I have a kindle :). I'm specifically wondering about the X4, which is the size of a phone, meant to be attached to the phone, but it's not a phone and crucially no backlight. Does it specifically fill a situation for people who don't want to carry a phone but will carry this? Or, for people who might carry x4 and a smart phone, why read on the x4? Thx!
  - eichin 4mo ago
    It's way smaller than modern phones, though - I clip mine to the back of my Samsung (magsafe case) and it only blocks one of the five cameras. (phone: 288g xtelink x4: 75g.) (also: hasn't the x4-v2 already been announced that is supposed to have a frontlight?)
  - eichin 4mo ago
    (having it right there mostly serves as a physical token/reminder that I don't want to get sucked in to my social media and other phone apps as much, so if I'm just using it to fill "politely waiting" time I can just grab the x4 instead. I also have a trivial pandoc-generated epub todo list as the first document, though that would work better as a crosspoint fork/feature really...)

f311a 4mo ago

x4 pro will come with backlight and touch screen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REKdjxYtMrI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REKdjxYtMrI

abricot 4mo ago

I have the Kobo Libra Color and the contrast on the X4 is much much better. The whole sticking-it-to-the-back-of-your-phone i find a bit useless, but mine came with two metal rings so that I can stick it to other places. I have one ring on the dashboard of my car so the X4 can hang there until i need to use it. Good for trips with many stops.

czpl 4mo ago

You can always install KOReader on Kindle to get the painless wireless transfer as well. It can even sync wirelessly with Calibre.